Hesitation
by Graceful Rage
Summary: Logically speaking, he has every reason to fight back. Emotionally speaking, he can't.


He's ninety percent sure that his combat program is malfunctioning.

What else would explain the locking up of his legs, how his fingers freeze upon brushing the trigger, or how whenever his opticals sighted his target, every mechanical joint refuses to respond and prevents him from charging forward and blasting the monster to pieces as he's done many times before.

There's no reason it should even be happening: his subroutines assured it, going so far as to sustain his body even while it was battered and broken. And while he's never experienced it since the cycles since activation, one self-diagnosis revealed the existence of an attack mode of sorts that would only be used as a last resort, overriding all other programs and solely focusing on terminating the target. It hadn't been too long since his last recuperation either and all results came back positive, not to mention he'd encountered hostile entities on the way here, and he'd succeeded in raising his arm and firing plasma into their skeletal bodies. So if his program was functioning perfectly...

Then why couldn't he fight back now?

His thoughts cut out as the enraged mimiga snarls, charges, a cruel chunk of stone squished between her paws- for some reason he refused to refer to the killer rabbit as an "it". She leaps and raises her cargo over her head with ease, a feat she never could've done prior to consuming the red flower. His blue opticals flare as the mimiga furiously chucks it down.

Suddenly, whatever unexplained phenomenon that had been holding his legs in place dissipates and the armed recon robot is able to quickly throw himself out of the way. The stone explodes into a conglomeration of sandy shards just behind him, filling the environment with a thick layer of dust.

_[WARNING! Additional lifeform detected approximately 5.32 feet behind unit]_

The alert is almost unnecessary. His head whips over his shoulder, sighting the animate flower advancing towards him: a composite daisy, his databanks inform him. Whether it were trapped in the concrete or spawned from whatever magic appeared to course through this cavernous network, he did not know.

Within miliseconds he's flipped onto his back, hoisting up the Polar Star and lining the flower in his sights. Remarkably, incomprehensibly, he pulls the trigger with no trouble. The gun kicks back in his glove-covered hands as it fires a singular shot of plasma straight through the flower's center. All that remains of the plant life is a scattering of petals and a charred mass, exuding a stench akin to roasted vegetables.

Before he can gather his senses, mostly to pinpoint _why_ he could not terminate the enraged mimiga but then effortlessly eradicate the daisy seconds later, a mangled shriek from above strikes his antenna. The robot's head perks up, spotting his main target, and with a curse shooting out of his metal lips he scrambles to his feet and jumps away just as she pounces down, her fist colliding with the spot his head had been located. Shockwaves erupt from the impact, causing him to stumble as he climbs to his feet, but he's able to recover and rush a considerable distance away from the mimiga. The Polar Star is out again, his boots digging firmly into the ground as he raises his arms, aiming the cobalt barrel at the back of Toroko's head.

Once again, his upper-body locks up as his fingers brush the cold, metal trigger.

...

Why?!

Not only did he terminate the daisy a second ago, he's perfectly capable of dodging any attack she threw, sometimes literally, at him- which had to mean that his subroutines were fully operational. So why is it that the second he tries to fight back, everything turns _numb_? Was it because of his specific target? Was it because he was fighting a mimiga, an entity archived as a friend, that had consumed the red flower? But there existed two other instances where he'd encountered such foes: once on the Egg Corridor and the other in Bushlands- the former where the mimiga in question had been previously identified as a threat and dealt with accordingly; the latter was more a situation of self-defense, much like his current predicament. Nonetheless, during both intervals, he'd successfully reduced the rabid, gnashing entities into piles of singed fur and burnt cloth. During both intervals, his combat routines had functioned perfectly.

Toroko- for some reason he refused to let go of her original name, despite the shy, submissive mimiga associated with it being a far cry of this ferocious, red-eyed monster in front of him- she growls and slowly turns her body to face him, hunched over on the ground on all fours. A grin is cracked crudely across her face, displaying an abstract gallery of sharp, saliva-stained teeth so jumbled together that they lay crooked and overlapping, almost fighting for dominance. But it's her eyes that draws his attention, not the jaws. The eyes that, though they now possess a crimson hue, remain startlingly similar in his databanks...

_...her eyes are half-lidded and puffy, signifying sadness. She crouches on the reservoir's shoreline approximately fifteen feet away from where his frame lies, palms and patellas supporting her as she scans the water's surface. It's a high possibility that she's looking for something, evidenced by the frequency which she darts her eyes and shakes her head in disappointment, though by the way her posture makes her smaller than she actually appears, it's also likely she's shy and taking in the reservoir's sights may be a coping mechanism._

_Of course, if it were the former proposal, that she were looking for something, it's very possible it may have been the locket he procured from the lake's bottom. And the mimiga he had seen fishing _did _mention how a "Sue" fell in here prior, much like he. Perhaps this "Sue" character was the initial owner of this locket and possibly lost it when she fell in. Reaching for the charm in his pant's pocket, he starts toward the shy mimiga. After all, maybe she'd be grateful for the return of the item- why did he want her to be grateful? Why did he want this mimiga, this stranger, to be in a more contented state when it had absolutely nothing to do with his current situation. Maybe it was because it'd make her trust him, give him someone to gather more intel from. Maybe it was something else._

_He's barely a yard away when the mimiga detects him, perking her head out of the collar of her oversized sweater and gaping at him with wide, innocent eyes. They skitter down his frame and pause, widening at the Polar Star he still carries at his side._

_"WAAAAAAAAAH!" Despite his enhanced receptors, he can only catch a single glimpse of the girl as she dashes out of the reservoir. He turns, reaching out a hand to her for some unknown reason, but she's gone. The only sign of her existence is the grass flattened from her escape. Yet, the robot remembers the look of heartbreak and terror on her face before she ran._

_And for some reason it troubles him._

_Not much later, forty five minutes, seventeen seconds and counting to be exact, he finds himself in a run-down prefab building. A house built during an interval where the village had more residents, perhaps? He doubts the runaway mimiga- Toroko and not Sue as he now knows- resides here. Why exactly he's so concerned about her, this particular mimiga, he doesn't understand. Yet locating her is the only thing he feels he can do. Without a master to serve, he found himself improvising and coming up with his own tasks._

_The antennae serving in place of ears detect the fur rustling against clothes from behind him. He looks over his shoulder, both hands grasping the Polar Star in the unlikely event that it was a monster- the place was rundown and abandoned after all, the perfect place for one to move in and inhabit._

_..._

_"YOU JERK!"_

Just like before, Toroko tackles him. Unlike before, where Newton's third law occurred and she merely fell flat on her back, she succeeds in driving him into the concrete flooring under a massive paw. His head slams brutally against it, static flashing into his vision. When it clears Toroko's green sweater fills his vision, no longer too many sizes too big for her and fit snugly over her body. For a second he believes that he's back at the prefab building in Mimiga Village. He _wants_ to believe that he is, that Torko had knocked him out back there and that everything up until this point- Jenka, Balrog, Sand Zone- had all been pure fantasy; his memory banks corrupted from the impact. Or, better yet, a premonition of the future: a chance to experience it before it actually came to happen.

For a second he believes that he can start over, do something this time instead of stand around. Less time comprehending the situation and more action. He wants to warn Toroko about Misery, the red flowers, _anything_ that'd prevent her future transformation into something so unlike herself. The urge to reach out and shield the figure above him throbs in his chest- the urge to protect her from the Doctor's minions and the Doctor himself and immediately take her away to someplace where she wouldn't ever be harmed again is the only thought circulating through his AI.

But he's not at the prefab building. He's not in the past. He's in the Sand Zone warehouse, held under an enraged Toroko's paw. The mimiga-of-the-hour rears the other one back, and brings it down, _hard_, slamming straight into his face.

He represses a cry as the pain receptors activate, shooting pinpricks across him and sending distress signals through his head. Reluctantly, he stuffs down the compulsion to shout, "Toroko, stop! This isn't you! Please, I don't want to hurt you anymore than anyone else did!" Something along those lines. But as he opens his mouth, an cracked optical squinted shut, the fist returns again. And again. Occasionally scooping up fistfuls of concrete and smashing them over his head, the tiny pebbles denting the metallic covering and beating his trademark hat dirty and senseless.

Subroutines kick in, urging him to struggle under the barrage. But he can't bring himself to hurt her. To stun her or to even kick at the paw holding him down. Toroko suffered so much already. A dead brother, hated for trying to help Sue, and now this. He... He couldn't. Couldn't bring himself to pour even the tiniest ounces of salt into the wound even as Toroko ceased punching, choosing instead to pound her left fist against his chest. Then the right. And soon Toroko's beating at his chest in tandem, driving him further and further into the concrete flooring.

_[WARNING! Thoracic region receiving heavy damage from hostile assailant. Additional damage will result in irreparable injury unless component is replaced afterwards, area is evacuated or the assailant is terminated immediately. WARNING!]_

The Polar Star weighs down his hand, heavier than ever despite any logical reason contradicting so.

_[WARNING! Outer layer of thoracic covering had been breached by a hostile assailant. Continued assault by this assailant will result in fatal damage. Assailant must be terminated immediately! WARNING!]_

Amidst the blows, he issues a command to shut off all pain receptors, hoping that the physical pain isn't the only thing alleviated.

_[WARNING! ASSAILANT MUST BE TERMINATED IMMEDIATELY! WARNING!]_

A shadow looms over him as Toroko raises her fists, preparing to crush him with one final blow. Knowing it's his last chance, the armed recon robot raises his Polar Star, aiming it at a chest covered by a green sweater. He tries to assure himself that when he shoots, it won't kill her like the other Mimiga. Surely it wouldn't, not after everything the two have been through. In the end things will work out and she'll be alright.

He closes his eyes...

...and fires.

* * *

**So, uh**

**I hope that wasn't too edgy.**

**Anyway, my characterization for Quote is pretty unorthodox to how other people portray him. He starts off as pretty, well, robotic as you saw in that flashback, spending more time with logical reasoning and being sort of detached from reality. Like, he perceives what's going on but can't "read the air". But as the story goes on he becomes more and more humanlike thanks to certain people. *cough cough Curly Brace cough cough excuse to ship them cough cough* I kind of saw the battle with Toroko as the main turning point in his development and it integrates really nicely within the canon story since it's only from here on out that some of your choices begin to matter, much like how my version of Quote steadily becomes his own person instead of a jumble of circuitry and commands.**

**I never know how to end these, so please tell me your thoughts on the fanfic.**


End file.
